The Red Garden - Alice Hoffman [75]
“He’s going to meet us tonight,” Tessa said.
“Tonight?” Carla said.
“We’re going to have a party,” Jesse remarked. “Unless you can’t come,” he said pointedly to Carla.
They were to meet at midnight on the steps of the museum. Carla and Tessa walked home together, slowly, for the day was still brutally hot. “What if it’s haunted like people say?” Carla wanted to know of their planned nighttime foray. “What if we see the sister who ran away?”
“Then we’ll prove there are ghosts, and I can write to Jack Kerouac and he can come here and rescue me.”
Carla was surprised to hear that Tessa of all people thought she needed rescuing.
“I thought you liked Blackwell,” she said reproachfully.
“Not from Blackwell.” Tessa made a face. “From myself.”
When she stopped, Carla did, too.
“You promise you won’t tell?” Tessa said.
Carla crossed her heart, which was pounding against her chest. Tessa lifted up the sleeves of her red shirt. There were marks on both wrists.
“Is that from the eels in the river?” Carla said, confused. “Were you bitten? That stupid Jesse, he should have never taken you swimming.”
Tessa smiled, then shook her head sadly. “It’s from before we moved here.”
Suddenly Carla realized these were the marks of a razor blade.
“Why would you cut yourself?” she asked.
Tessa shrugged. “After my father left, I didn’t see the point of things. I wanted to burn bright. To feel something deeply.”
“Tiger, tiger,” Carla murmured softly.
“Exactly.” Tessa glowed. “You understand me, Carly. But it was a mistake. My father never even showed up at the hospital. And they made me leave school. That’s the real reason we moved here.”
“Sometimes I feel like leaving school,” Carla admitted. “People make fun of me because I work in my father’s gas station.”
There. It was out in the open. Carla looked sideways at her friend.
“They’re probably just jealous because you have a job,” Tessa said. “You’re more mature and responsible.”
Carla didn’t think that was the reason, but she was pleased to hear that Tessa did.
“Hey, you two,” Ava said when they approached the cottage. She signaled them into the kitchen, where she’d been baking all day. The owner of the Hightop Inn had been interested when Ava went up there with a sampling of cakes. He said he might be willing to take six cakes per week. “Try this,” Ava said, cutting them slices of yellow coconut cake. “Envy Cake. Everyone wants the recipe.”
“It’s unbelievable,” Tessa said. “I’m going to send one of these to Jack Kerouac.”
“You don’t know where he lives,” Carla reminded her.
“I’ll send it via his publisher. I’ll write a note that will make him burn with desire. I envy your life on the road. Take me with you!”
THEY SNEAKED OUT at the midnight hour. It was the Fourth of July, so no one would notice. Everyone would be out in Band’s Meadow watching the fireworks or they’d be at the annual Independence Day party at the Jack Straw Bar and Grill. Carla had come through the woods alone. She was nervous in the dark. She was nervous about meeting the Motts. She wondered what it felt like to cut yourself, to be so daring, to be asked to leave school, to not care about your reputation.
Tessa climbed out her window while Carla waited in the yard. She shinnied down the drainpipe, then jumped down from the porch roof. There were red roses growing there and the thorns had torn into Tessa’s skin, but she didn’t seem to mind. She and Carla looped their arms around each other and went toward the museum.
“Who do you like better? Frank or Jesse?” Carla asked.
“They’re just boys,” Tessa said dismissively. “I need a man like Mr. Jack K. Someone with experience. Frank and Jesse have probably never been outside of Blackwell.”
That was true of Carla as well, but she agreed with Tessa. “They’re mere babies,” she remarked, even though she herself would have run off with Jesse in the blink of an eye.
The Mott brothers were waiting behind the museum. Their mother volunteered in the gift shop, and Jesse had swiped the key to the back door. They stumbled